The messy faces of Eleanor

The older Eleanor gets, the more she wants to do things independently. "Eh-know do it self!" is a phrase we hear multiple times a day now. Basically for us, this just means we have to give up on the illusion that she is ever clean and translates to a lot more baths or showers. For example, at the farmers' market last weekend, she got a treat before we left and wanted to hold it herself. Unfortunately it was about a hundred degrees outside and her treat happened to be a chocolate-covered pretzel.

Then later in the weekend, she wanted to eat a popsicle herself. I don't think this picture adequately does her justice. Her entire mouth was purple, her clothes were sticky, and when we took them off, she had a purple stain running from her chin down her stomach to her diaper. It was quite gross.

The one positive to all this though is that it doesn't seem to bother her when she's sticky, messy, sweaty, etc!